Blog

By Ashley A. Smith, EdSource, June 12, 2020 More than half of Cerritos College’s 22,000 students are either homeless or struggle to pay their rent and other housing utilities. That fact was the driving reason why the college, located in Norwalk, south of Los Angeles, opened the state’s first housing project for community college students facing housing insecurity. College officials held the grand opening of the housing development Thursday. “The homeless crisis in LA is pretty big,” said...

Kirk Ferentz publicly repeated a message Wednesday that he privately shared with his Iowa football players two days earlier. That he’s a 64-year-old white football coach. And that he’s still learning about the reality of racism and inequities in our country. More importantly, Ferentz has expressed to players and media this week that is he willing to listen. Willing to learn. Willing to change. Willing to act. Protests against police violence and racism were something Ferentz, the current...

Of interest: Spend June 5 with members of the new National Academies report: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth Announcement in ACES Connection calendar : June 5 Calendar Announcement https://www.acesconnection.com/event/realizing-opportunity-for-all-youth-discussion-the-new-national-academies-report or at Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, University of Virginia (ILPPP) https://ilppp.virginia.edu/OREM/JuvenilePrograms/Course/144 Working with the National Academies of Sciences,...

As protests erupt across the country and around the world demanding justice for George Floyd, a black man who was killed while in Minneapolis police custody, higher education must play a leadership role in addressing the issues at their center—racism and white supremacy. The devastating video that shows Mr. Floyd pleading for his life follows high-profile news reports of the killing of Breonna Taylor, a young black woman who was shot in bed by Memphis police engaged in a botched search for a...

Please join us for the ongoing community discussion of A Better Normal, our ongoing series in which we envision the future as trauma-informed. College graduates across the world have been celebrating their big day virtually this month, missing out on the right of passage that marks their stepping into new realms of adult and professional life. Many students and recent graduates are feeling the negative impact of the current pandemic: being housing displaced, adjusting to virtual classrooms,...

By Jennifer White and Rebecca Del Rossi, Futures Without Violence, May 29, 2020 The Institute for Leadership in Education Development (I-LED), a project of Futures Without Violence supported by the U.S. Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), shares a new tool for “going virtual” with pieces of your educational programs. Translating Your In-Person Education Online: Tips for Piecing it All Together , includes a process for taking all or part of in-person training to a...

At Yale University, Indigenous people make up a small percentage of enrollment: Out of over 13,000 students, a little over 100 identify as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, First Nation or Indigenous more broadly. As such a small minority, Yale's Native students say they sometimes encounter flawed assumptions, like the idea that they all live on reservations, that they don't use modern technology or that they have a singular set of beliefs. On the contrary, Native American...

By Marisa Martinez, EdSource, April 17, 2020 Mornings for student Cristina Zetino at California State University, Los Angeles are as normal as they can be. Before she packs up her things, she checks in with the family that offers her an occasional place to lay her head for the night. The self-described “couch surfer” alternates between three different homes throughout the week while juggling work and classes. Always in her possession are three bags: “One bag for school, one for clothes and a...

By Kirk Ambrose, April 6, 2020, CU Boulder Today The past few weeks have been stressful and disruptive for everyone. Our students are especially vulnerable as they may be facing any number of challenges, such as financial stress, housing and food insecurity, and additional demands related to caring for family members and themselves. What is more, some students may be in a different time zone, need to miss regularly scheduled class meetings because of unforeseen demands, have to find...

By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, March 26, 2020 “Anxiety” is one of the words you hear frequently about our individual and collective reactions to the coronavirus pandemic — which has stopped public life in its tracks in much of the world. Kids are anxious. So are their parents and teachers and principals and superintendents and friends and elected officials. For those people who were anxious before covid-19, the sense of apprehension has only deepened. Given that, this post offers...

The picture isn't pretty. See this linked article with its solution (with more to follow). Comments welcomed. I hope this helps. https://www.tcpress.com/blog/schools-close-academic-year/

Here is my just released article with 10 concrete suggestions that can be deployed immediately. They can be adapted for PreK- 12 schools and workplaces; they are designed for colleges/universities but easily transported. These are all trauma-responsive and critically important in my view. I noted with a smile that the ACE Connection folks are already using some of these in their own organization. Feel free to circulate the 10 suggestions as a separate document (with attribution as to where...